Ignatius nodded. “So if we emphasize the, ummm, cleanness and loyalty of the younger generation of House Liu, it will be useful politically. It will also show that the High King is not biased against the Association’s nobility either. They are half at least of Montival’s military power and must be, ummmm, kept sweet.”
“I should be glad to help, my son.”
Ignatius sighed slightly. I expected that, but it is so good to hear it! And the Abbot has always had a gift for dealing with the young.
“I knew a little of these matters as they occurred,” Dmwoski said. “And I have studied the papers you forwarded. The Lady Regent Sandra was always a little obsessive about complete files on every conceivable matter!”
“For which, thank God,” Ignatius said sincerely, and crossed himself again. “This matter is personally important to the High King and Her Majesty as well-they have sworn to protect Baron Odard’s younger brother and sister. Her Majesty promised it to him as he lay dying. But it is also important that they gain an overview of how it relates to the larger problem. We must defeat the CUT in battle, but in the longer run its remnants will be a severe problem, perhaps even a mortal threat… ah, the children have arrived.”
Though they were not really children anymore. Yseult was a striking yellow-haired maiden of seventeen with delicate umber-tinted features very slightly marred by four small deep pinhead-sized scars on the left side of her face, one at the corner of her eye. She wore a plain gray robe and white wimple, the habit of a lay oblate of the Sisters of Compassion. Her long, slanted blue eyes were slightly haunted, and she was limping a little from an injury about which the records told a remarkable story. Huon was younger and darker, fifteen and obviously shooting up, in a page’s outfit with the arms of the Barons of Mollala on its chest, the Lion-and-Assegai quartered with the mon symbol of House Liu. Both of them looked more than a little apprehensive as their made their curtsy and leg-forward bow respectively, and then turned to kiss the bishop’s ring. Their past year had been traumatic, to say the least.
“You are not in trouble, my children,” Ignatius said warmly. “Quite the contrary. I was with your brother Odard for over a year, all the way from Odell to the Sunrise Ocean. The second Baron of Gervais was a very brave man, a loyal comrade and a true knight whose name will live forever when honor’s praise is sung, one whom the High King has several times said to me he sorely misses at his right hand. I heard his last confession and administered the Sacraments to him. He died in great hope, and I think that hope was justified. His last request to the Princess… High Queen… was that she take you under her protection, and that she swore to do.”
The youngsters relaxed a little, though both were still a little wary under impeccable manners.
Their lives have been much disrupted, Ignatius thought. Their brother gone, their mother a traitor… to God as well as the Realm
… and unpleasantly dead, themselves under virtual house arrest, and then the direct attack of the CUT’s powers. Also the result of their mother’s folly, ably abetted by her brother.
“Young lord Huon, I am directed by Their Majesties to assure you that you are confirmed as heir to the Barony and lands of Gervais upon reaching your majority, and that there is no question of attainture for the actions of your mother and uncle. You will understand that the Lady Regent felt this matter had to be reserved for Their Majesties’ final judgment.”
“Yes, my lord Chancellor.”
“Furthermore, your education has been severely disrupted by… the unfortunate events. Her Majesty is now forming her own household-a riding household, primarily, a fighting menie, for the duration of the war. You have completed your time as a page and Lord Chaka gives you excellent recommendations. It would therefore please Her Majesty to take your oath as squire.”
Ignatius folded his hands on the desk and went on gravely: “I can testify from personal experience that Her Majesty is a knight of no mean skill with her own hands, and she will often be in the forefront at the High King’s side, or on independent commands of her own. As her squire you would share her perils and her achievements. This is a post of both honor and danger, in which you will be given the opportunity to show what is in you. Do you accept?”
Huon flushed crimson, stammered, nodded wordlessly and then nodded quickly again. It was also a public affirmation of his family’s loyalty and a promise of great preferment, if he showed well; a plum position at which any young nobleman would jump.
After a moment he spoke: “Yes, my lord Chancellor, that is, if Lord Chaka agrees. Lord Chaka has been very kind to me when it was, ummm, politically and physically dangerous to be anywhere near me, and I would not desert him.”
“He has given his consent, and”-Ignatius looked down at a letter-“says you show promise and that he wishes he could have been a better master for you as a page, for your brother’s sake and your own. Do sit, young man.”
Huon sat, nearly collapsing into the chair and looking rather stunned. Ignatius turned his attention to the boy’s sister, standing with her hands modestly clasped before her and obviously happy for Huon.
“My child, I understand that you have a special devotion for St. Bernadette of Lourdes. I take it you do not feel a vocation for the life of a religious, though?”
“No, Father… my lord Chancellor. That is, I’ve wondered, and prayed, but… I want to be married and have children and a home of my own someday. Though I’ve been glad to be useful with the Sisters.”
“It is good that you know your mind and heart,” Ignatius said robustly. “We are not all called to make the same sacrifices and a vocation must be firm and unambiguous; if there is doubt, the answer is no. According to your superiors you have worked well and uncomplainingly with the wounded. Her Majesty instructs me to tell you that when matters are more settled-”
When we know we’re going to survive the next year as something besides guerillas in the hills, went unspoken among them.
“-she will take you into her own household as lady-in-waiting. Furthermore, she will settle lands on you from the Crown demesne, several manors, to be held by you in your own right for life as a tenant-in-chief of the Crown, and to descend to the heirs of your body. As to the matter of your marriage, that will be taken under consideration in due course in consultation with you and your brother. There’s no hurry; Her Majesty does not approve of early marriages. And in memory of your elder brother, Their Majesties will stand godparents to your children and your brother’s, when they come, which God grant.”
It was Yseult’s turn to flush and look dazed; she’d been turned from a dubious prospect to a prize catch in one stroke, and given a promise she could take her pick of the suitors she’d eventually have rather than be played as a card in the game of politics. In fact, with manors of her own she could take a landless man if she preferred him. Godparenthood was also something their generation took very seriously indeed; it was called compadrazgo in the Association territories, and established lifelong bonds almost as strong as kinship by blood. To have the right to call the High Queen comadre was a cadeau of incredible value.
Ignatius chuckled slightly. “Don’t look quite so stunned, my children. I didn’t speak lightly when I said how highly Their Majesties held your brother in their esteem. He is sorely missed in this time of war and trial. He would have been trusted with the most vital missions and highest offices if he had lived.”
Then gravely: “Take him as your example in loyalty and service, and you will find the High King and Queen very faithful friends and good lords, and House Liu will rest secure in their favor.”
“I… we will, my lord Chancellor,” Huon said fervently.
“And your service can begin now. Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski has kindly agreed to take charge of preparing a full report on the attacks by the CUT on your family. On the Quest we suffered from the attentions of the diabolists, but you fought the same fight here.”
Which is a tactful way to put it. But for the best. We need to draw a line
beneath the machinations of their mother and uncles.
“Lord Huon, you’ll need a few days to outfit yourself before you join Her Majesty, probably in Goldendale. Here is a letter of credit for arms, horses and field gear, and a note giving you precedence. I would appreciate it if you and your sister would cooperate with the good Abbot while you’re preparing.”
“We will stop at the inn where I am staying, for a little while,” Dmwoski said, as they made their way out onto Park and turned onto the thronged sidewalks of Broadway.
Shattuck Hall was near the southern part of modern Portland, where the city wall curved in towards the Willamette along the eastern edge of the old Interstate 405. The shadow of the great works of the Barbur Gate reached almost as far as the street where they stood, and you could see the towers of the outworks on the other side of the highway, tall on the hills that guarded the approaches. Edged metal blinked there as sentries paced the ramparts, and a blimp-shaped observation balloon floated in the sky above at the end of the long graceful curve of its tethering cable.
“I will return you to good Sister Cecilia at the War Ministry, and she can escort you back to Bethany Refuge when we are done for today, Lady Yseult. Or your brother could escort you, if you feel the need for some private conversation.”
Huon Liu nodded. He seems OK, he thought.
The Order of the Shield of St. Benedict had a reputation for severity in the Association territories, but its founder scarcely seemed the ogre that legend made him. If you subtracted the black robe and the sword belt, he seemed like everyone’s favorite uncle, in fact, or a good-natured but shrewd teacher. Huon exchanged a quick glance with his sister, and they shared a wary nod.
We’ve always been close, Huon thought. After the last couple of years, we’re each about all the other has left, though.
“I am not simply going to ask you questions, my children. I am going to tell you things as well. Nothing will be withheld. You have a right to know the whole story of what has happened to your family, and how it bears on the kingdom and yourselves. I have the time for this, you understand, while Friar Ignatius…”
They both nodded; the Lord Chancellor had been opening a new file even as they left, gnawing absently on a heel of bread as he did.
The office building that he’d picked was a little out of the way and had been vacant since the Change, a low nondescript brick structure convenient because of its location, its position on the preventative maintenance list, and the fact that the pipes could be turned back on for city water. Huon was glad to be out of the slightly musty scent of a building unoccupied for twenty-five years. Most of the time his generation was thoroughly indifferent to the world before the Change, but settings like that could give you a slight subliminal knowledge that the present was built on the bones of six billion dead.
And…
Told everything! That’s a change from being treated like a mushroom, he thought, with a sudden eagerness. It’s going to be fun being the High Queen’s squire, but I’m still sort of burning a bit over the way we were kept in the dark about things. I suppose it was necessary, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. The Spider… the Lady Regent… is tighter with information than she is with money, and that’s saying something.
He felt a slight guilty spurt of pleasure when he thought of the letter of credit in his belt-pouch, after years on a close allowance while Barony Gervais was under Crown wardship. He could run amok through the quality armorers that catered to the nobility, even with the war. No need to accept good-enough Armory standard gear. It was even justified, since he was going to be a royal squire. He had to show well to do his patron credit!
And horses, he thought. A pair of rouncies and a good courser.. . maybe even a destrier-
Destriers were the ultimate luxury; they cost many times what a suit of plate armor did, and wore out much faster.
If I bought a young one, just out of a training farm, he would still be in his prime when I’m old enough to fight as a man-at-arms; that’s only three years or so from now… and he’d be really well-used to me by then.
Yseult gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs and he glared back; they knew each other too well to hide much, even of their thoughts. Then he smoothed his expression. He had a feeling that the elderly cleric didn’t miss much either.
Most of the gathering troops were passing directly east, or were being held in tented camps outside the city walls, but there were armed men in plenty-noblemen and officers clutching papers as often as swords, afoot or on horseback or in pedicabs, with sergeants on bicycles or trotting doggedly with a rasp of hobnails on asphalt and cement. Most of the traffic was freight, though; endless wagons of grain, barreled hardtack, racked armor, crossbows, and the salvage metal and timber and leather that the city’s craft guilds and factories would transform into the sinews of war.
The noise was a continuous grumbling roar, voices and steel-shod hooves clattering hollowly on pavement, and steel wheels grinding on the steel rails of the city’s horsecar network. The inn was not far away and had been a hotel before the Change, called the Benson after some lord of old. It occupied most of a block, three stories of pale terra-cotta and many more of brick above, graded by ease of access. The reception rooms and dining chambers and kitchens were on the first two, the guests of rank on the next pair, those of more humble background on the three above that, and the rest fading up through servants and attendants to the hotel staff themselves.
Right now more than a dozen miniature heraldic shields were hung beside the main doors, showing that guests of armigerous family were staying-knights and lesser nobles who had no town houses of their own and rented suites here instead for themselves and their families and retinues when duty or pleasure called them in from their estates. Huon read them as casually and automatically as he would have so many printed signs. They flanked a larger fixed shield bearing a Madonna and Child; the Virgin was Portland’s patron.
The staff were dashing around looked harried themselves, but one man with a towel over his shoulder showed the bishop and his party to a corner booth of the big common room with its cut-glass wall at one end. The good odors of cooking overrode the city-smells of smoke and horses and sweat and wool; they were not far from the riverside docks where barges and the craft that plied the Columbia above its joining with the Willamette unloaded. Even oceangoing ships came upstream from Astoria sometimes, and they added their tang of bulk produce and salt fish and exotics like sugar and coffee and indigo and tea to the symphony of scents.
It was all exciting, and would be even in peacetime compared to the quiet routine of a castle or manor, though he didn’t think he’d like it for more than a visit. The great walls and towers that surrounded Portland made it immensely strong, but they also gave an uncomfortable sense of confinement. You could get out of a castle quickly, at least, and most of them had green fields right up to the moat.
A swift look at the menu chalked on a blackboard made him dither a bit, but Yseult had been teasing him about always getting the same thing; he forewent the double-bacon cheeseburger and had the souvlaki and pita with fries and a Portland Crown Ale. Yseult chose the batter-fried sturgeon with a salad and a glass of white wine, and Dmwoski settled for bread and a piece of grilled fish.
“It’s not a fast-day, is it, Most Reverend Father?” Huon asked, with a prickle of stricken embarrassment.
He wasn’t as devout as his sister, but he tried to do the right thing. Yseult shook her head doubtfully, then pulled out a little bound Book of Hours and checked the reference table at the back as the platters arrived to be sure. Dmwoski chuckled.
“Just Father will do, my children. No, it’s simply that at my age the fire needs less fuel. Fat monks are figures of fun for good reason.”
He pronounced a short brisk grace and they fell to; Huon was feeling hungrier than usual, since he’d been too nervous to do breakfast any justice. Dmwoski nodded at his appetite.
“You, on the other hand, are building bone and mus
cle yet, my son. Give me your hand for a moment.”
He did, and they squeezed. The soldier-monk’s grip was astonishingly strong for a man his age, and felt as if it had been carved from an ancient dry-cured ham.
“Good,” the cleric said. “Lord Chaka’s report did say that you were shaping well. What is the first thing you wish to know?”
Huon opened his mouth, closed it again, and thought. He was warmed and irritated both when Yseult gave him an approving look, and though Dmwoski’s face was calm he thought there was something similar in the monk’s blue eyes.
“I’d like to know what really happened with our-with Barony Gervais-contingent at the Battle of Pendleton. With my uncle.”
“Sir Guelf Mortimer, your mother’s brother.”
“Yes. I know something went badly wrong, Father, at the battle or just after, and there are all sorts of rumors. But our men are not cowards!”
“No, they are not,” Dmwoski said. He frowned, tapping his fingers together. “In fact, they did rather well.”
When he went on his tone was dry, the voice he would have used to speak to an adult: “What happened was this: the allied powers of the Corvallis Meeting-we were not yet Montival then, Rudi Mackenzie and the Princess and the other questers were still struggling through eastern Idaho-tried to steal a march on the CUT and Boise and seize Pendleton. That was just a little under two years ago now. We meant to strike before its Bossman could make a pact with them and they could send troops to secure the city and its territories. Unfortunately, it turned out that they had stolen a march on us. As nearly as we can tell, from reports and interrogations later, what happened is…”
Huon leaned forward as the old soldier-monk spoke. The room around them faded away; he could smell the oiled metal of armor, feel the fierce interior sun-
PENDLETON ROUND-UP TERRITORY CITY OF PENDLETON (FORMERLY NORTHEASTERN OREGON) SEPTEMBER 15, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD
This is not going to be a good day.
The Tears of the Sun tc-5 Page 3
